The millennium
development goals (MDGs) is a set of eight point agenda adopted by 149
World leaders on how to stem the problem of poverty and its attendant
horrors in the Least Developed Countries (LDGs) of the world. The
decisions to formulate a long term poverty reduction strategy was reached
during the United Nations Millennium summit held in September 2000, in
line with the International Development Targets (IDT’s) which aims at
improving economic well being, social and human development and ensuring
environmental sustainability and regeneration.

The outcome of the United Nations Millennium
summit was a declaration committing all members states (including Nigeria)
to strive and achieve the following Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and
hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal basic
education

Goal 3 Promote gender equality and
empower women

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and
other diseases

Goal 7: Ensure environmental
sustainability

Goal 8: Develop global partnership
for development

As a constructive way of achieving the
Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria, the past administration of
president Olusegun-Obasanjo made concerted effort in the socio-economic
and political spheres in order to move the country to greater heights.

The National Economic Empowerment and
Development Strategy (NEEDs) is a reform programme designed to consolidate
the achievements between 1999-2003 and lay a foundation for sustainable
poverty reduction, employment generation, wealth creation and value
re-orientation. These coordinal consideration is perceived by economic
analyst as the nations blue-print for development, and as such, represents
the framework by which government, private sector, donor agencies and
NGO’s hope to put Nigeria on the road to sustainable development.

Inline with the targets of the Millennium
Development Goals, NEEDs seeks to fights against the many strands of
poverty through job creation and empowerment of people to success. As a
way of bringing the reform programme closer to Nigerians, each state
government is expected to develop a State Economic Empowerment and
Development Strategy (SEEDs). The implementation, monitoring and
evaluation framework will be through the Natinal Economic Council and the
National Council Development on Planning. Furthermore, local governments
are being encouraged to develop benchmarks, targets, deliverables,
timeliness and implementation guides. The institutional framework of
NEEDs is meant to facilitate the process of interaction between
stakeholders and to ensure synergy in the implementation process.

Indeed the home-grown reform programme
called NEEDs is perceived in many quanters, as a carefully planned
foundation for a better Nigeria. It highlights the major problems
bedeviling the growth of Nigeria, and brings to fore ways of checking
them. Infact, NEEDs is said to be all about the Nigerian people because
it offers a holistic picture of the social and economic challenges facing
the country and provides a multi-pronged approach to tackling them.

Having considered the economic reform
programme of the country, one is likely to ask the extend to which Nigeria
has been able to achieve the Millennium Development Goals seven years
after it was adopted as an effective formula for sustainable development.

The United Nations Human Development Index,
measures achievement in health and longevity (Life expectancy at birth),
education (adult literacy and enrolment at primary school, secondary and
tertiary institutions), and living standard (GDP per capital). As a
composite indicator of development, countries index are measured by how
close they have come to attaining a life expectancy of 85 years, 100%
adult literacy and school enrolment and GDP per capital of $40,000 per
year.

As a way of evaluating the likehood of the
country to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, attention
will be focused on each of the goals and how it relates, with the Nigerian
situation.

Agenda 21 of the 1992 earth summit in Rio,
recognizes combating poverty as a basic condition for ensuring
socio-economic and environmental sustainability. Poverty reduction is
coincidentally the first goal of the Millennium Development Goals, and
also, the first cardinal consideration in the NEEDs document. The target
under both frameworks is to reduce at least by half, the number of poor
people before a specified time.

However, Nigeria is ranked the 17th
least developed country of the world by the United Nations Human
Development report of 2007. According to the international indicator for
extreme poverty, 70.2% of Nigerians live on less than 1 dollar or N124 per
day- and the proportion is still increasing. Moreso, it is estimated that
over 20 million Nigerians do not have access to 20 litres of safe drinking
water. Most often, up to 1.5 hours a day on average is spent by rural
household to collect water and fuel wood, with household members walking
an average of one kilometer each day to have access to these basic
necessities of life. The current urban unemployment rate of 10.8% has
greatly affected the Annual productivity of the country and has further
driven it away from reducing poverty by 2015.

The second goal of the MDG’s which focuses
on achieving universal basic education, still poses a startling revelation
even with the incept of democratic rule in the country. It is estimated
that about 51% of adult Nigerians are uneducated as at the last decades of
the 20th century. Although 76% of children of primary school
age attend school, participation dropped to 20% for secondary school age.
Gender composition of primary school enrolment showed little or no change
during the decades of the 1990s with the female share being consistently
below 50%, though, modest improvement was recorded in 2000. Rural
concentration of illiterate children accounts for 20.3% in 1980, and
almost 70% in 2007. Despite spirited effort by government to reverse the
ugly trend of event in the educational sector in consonance with the
Millennium Development Goals, primary school completion rate still stood
at 75.2% in 2006.

The country scores, high in the aspect of
gender balance and ensuring equitable representation of women in the
social, economic and political activities of the country. The proportion
of seats held by women in the National parliament has increased from 3% in
2001 to 71% in 2007-and the figure is still on the increase, bearing in
mind the reform policies of the past and present administration which aims
at fully integrating women into the decision-making process of the
country. Domestication of the UN convention on the Eliminating of all
forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), have played a great role in
ensuring that the rights of women are protected. Also, as one of the most
vulnerable groups in the society, government recognizes the need to
empower women educationally through value re-orientation of parent in
order to ensure equal opportunity for the girl child. Infact, latest
statistics have shown that about 84.0% of girls now enjoy equal chance of
education as their male counterpart- an indicator that gender disparity in
primary and secondary schools can be eliminated in the near future.

Reducing child mortality is the fourth goal
of the MDG’s, which the country is still grabbling to achieve by 2015.
Incidence of child mortality is still very high in Nigeria considering the
unsatisfactory figure, which indicates that for every 1,000 live births,
201 die almost immediately. When compared with other countries in the
sub-Saharan region, child mortality rate stands at 173.9 per 1,000 live
births- a situation which prick the mind of a careful observer who will
tend to consider the enormosity of our problems as more of man-made than
natural. The multiple problem of poverty, Inadequate healthcare delivery
system, malnutrition and low level of education in our society seems to
account for the high prevalence of child mortality. Despite support from
the World Health Organization (WHO) in the fight against child killer
diseases, Nigeria is one of the countries with highest prevalence of
polio. Proportion of children fully immunized had dropped from 30% in
1990 to 17% in 1999 and 40% of children in the later years had never
received any vaccination.

Maternal mortality rate stood at 704 per
100,000 as at 2004, and like other indicators of development, the figure
is still increasing in Nigeria. In Europe, one in 2,400 women die during
pregnancy; in parts of Africa (Nigeria inclusive), it is 1 in every 20
women. At 1 physician per 1,000 people, cases of maternal mortality may
not be reduced before the end of the 21st century. On the
causes of increased maternal mortality in Nigeria, one can safely conclude
that low access by poor women to trained health personel and lack of
education accounts for more than 60% of maternal mortality cases in
Nigeria.

Tackling the scourge of HIV/AIDs, Malaria
and other diseases is one of the daunting challenges most African
countries have had to grabble with in the 21st century.
Despite concerted effort by the government of Nigeria to curtail the
spread of these killer diseases, the figure of people living with HIV/AIDS
have been on the increase. In 2007, the number of children orphaned by
the disease stood at more than 930,000 with another estimated 5 million
Nigerians living with the disease. According to available statistics,
malaria is one of the leading causes of death in people of all ages in
Nigeria. It is said that children under 5 years and pregnant women are
most vulnerable. Earlier, the Nigerian government in partnership with
international development agencies began a campaign to “roll back” malaria
through the introduction of insecticides and mosquito nets. These nets
are supposedly available in primary healthcare centers across the country,
but 70% of Nigerians do not have access to it due to cost. Furthermore,
Nigeria is ranked amongst the top 20 countries shackled by tuberculosis.
In spite of the near curable nature of the disease, only 19% of the T.B
related cases are treated.

Nigeria is blessed with abundant natural and
mineral resources which has been practically mismanaged over the years due
to insufficient care for the livelihood and well being of future
generation. The country occupies more than two third of central Africa’s
mangrove stand and wetland – an important mangrove habitation in the World
which is under threats from exploitation of timber, oil spill, gas flaring
and impact of increased urban migration. In the 1980’s some 92,000
hectares a quarter of our land was once covered by forest. Today, just
half of the green forest still remain, and the potential for their future
exploitation is extremely limited. The situation may even get worse
considering that over 90% of rural population depends on the forest for
livelihood and domestic energy. The activities of oil prospecting
companies and other mineral exploration corporations has led to a lot of
environmental degradation in the Niger- Delta; a situation which creates a
bleak picture for the future generation. Presently, more than 50 species
of mammals including the Patas Monkey and Leopard are classified as
endangered species and face the risk of extinction by the end of the 21st
century.

If the Millennium Development Goal of
ensuring environmental sustainability is to be achieved, our environmental
laws need to be well designed and enforced to the latter.

The eighth goal specifies avenues through
which the first seven goals can be achieved by way of joint partnership
with international development agencies. With the incept of democratic
rule in Nigeria, a lot has been done to create cordial relationship with
the international community. The recent debt cancellation by the Paris
club owed by Nigeria was seen as a landmark achievement. Moreso, Nigeria
has proved to the World that it has strategic importance in Africa, and is
a source of peace and stability in West Africa. It lead international
peace-keeping role in the sub-region. In terms of international and
regional integration, Nigeria is a founding member of the New partnership
for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), African Union, and the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The number of fixed lines and
mobile phone subscribers has increased from 22% in 1990 to 79.1 in 2004 an
unprecedented increase which fosters communication and creates more
partnership with international development agencies.

In spite of the ugly picture painted above,
and the near impossibility of the country in achieving the Millennium
Development Goals by 2015, much has been recorded in recent times.
Nigeria produces 2 million barrels of oil per day and is ranked the sixth
largest producers in the organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC). The country’s proven reserves of oil amounts to about 37 billion
barrels, enough to last for 37 years at the current rate of production.
It is estimated that our natural gas reserve amount to 174 trillion cubic
feet, the equivalent of 30 billion barrels of crude oil. If fully
utilized, our gas will last another 110 years.

At 924,768 square kilometer, Nigeria is
larger than Sweden, Norway and Denmark put together. According to the UN
food and Agriculture organization, cocoa and rubber accounts for 60% of
our non-oil merchandise export. Of our 98 million hectares of land, 74
million is arable and can be of medium to good productivity if properly
managed. Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 should not be our
primary focus as a country bearing in mind our rich human and natural
potentials.

At an estimated 140 million people, a figure
which amounts for nearly one quarter of the population of sub-Saharan
Africa, it beats the imagination of a careful observer on why the country
still languish in poverty. Instead of focusing on delivering essential
public services, some government officials chose to enrich themselves and
their immediately family members through looting. Corruption, favorism
and nepotism now strive in the country without regard for the needs of the
common man. The problem is even compounded considering the negative value
orientation and traditional practices inherent in our society that tends
to relegate women to the background a situation which creates more poverty
in the country. Other hindrances to the country achieving the Millennium
Development Goals are: poor economic management, hostile environment for
private sector growth, weak and inappropriate public sector etc.

With wise management, the country can still
be Africa’s largest economy, and also play a significant role in the
global economy. Be that as it may be, the present administration of
President Umaru Musa Yar’adu should re-position the economy of the country
through the formulation of effective policies and programmes meant to
steer Nigeria to greater height. The principle of accountability,
transparency and respect for the rule of law should be upheld and most
importantly enforced. It should be able to pursue the millennium
development goals with utmost zeal and seriousness.

Though a colossal task, there is need for
the development of an independent anti-corruption organization without
under government intervention in order to check the excesses of corrupt
public office holders and also instill the virtue of discipline in civil
service.

Empowerment of people toward success through
job creation, provision of affordable houses and other basic amenities of
life can also serve as an avenue for achieving the millennium development
goals by 2015.